As websites have moved toward responsive design, many of my clients are confronting the harsh realities of creating new websites. In many cases, these sites have content that is no longer representative of their businesses. Their images are irrelevant, often small thumbnails, the navigation clumsy. But starting from scratch and building a new website is always a major initiative; it can be expensive and time-consuming.

Happily, there may be a relatively simple solution

If your site was built in WordPress, in many cases we can simply apply a new design template to the existing site that can achieve a complete transformation. I just finished a project that included this kind of facelift, giving a website a new lease on life and dramatically extending its shelf life.

The client is a husband-and-wife team of smart, savvy business brokers with 50+ years of collective industry experience and a high customer-service ethic. They had a canned website—the vendor provides content and infrastructure, but gives them a lot of latitude for customization. The content feed is very good, but my clients have never taken advantage of it (the last post was in 2013) or done much customization.

Their old site was becoming a liability

My clients are not marketing people, and they launched their site without really giving much thought to SEO, their marketing presence or how the site would look to a prospective client. They were relieved to get the site launched and be able to put their business broker hats back on.

But now they recognized that their site was becoming a liability; they were missing opportunities to generate new leads, and they asked me to help them update it. This was a simple project, and happily, some easy changes have made a dramatic difference. It showcases my clients as industry experts, has good navigation and increased SEO value.

We made changes that help showcase their industry expertise

Identified lively new images that are representative of their potential clients and updated the homepage slider, adding visual appeal and energy to their site.

Rewrote their bios to showcase their wide range of experience, using their keywords throughout.

Developed case studies that showcase my clients’ high level of customer service and expertise negotiating leases, dealing with government agencies, performing market analyses and business valuations.

Updated testimonial page so endorsements are fully fleshed out and attractively displayed on the page.

Turned name of company into a logo/tagline with use of a more stylish font, creating a more distinctive marketing presence.

Fleshed out Yoast plugin on backend to increase SEO value.

Added calls to action on all of their personal pages, making it easy for a user to contact them for more information.

None of these efforts by itself was complex, difficult or time-consuming, but collectively, they helped update a website that was uncompetitive. If your site is not generating leads, rather than a whole new site, this kind of makeover might be a solution for you. Contact us atTop of Mind Marketing. We’reSEOandcontent marketingexperts.

Search has changed, which means it’s time to rethink the way we create content.

Google has gotten a lot smarter about making associations

Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving to provide the best possible answers to searchers’ queries. If you search for “running shoes,” Google will now also serve up results for related words, such as “sneakers.” Google is now interpreting conversational queries as entire thoughts rather than individual keywords. An estimated 64% of searches are four words or more.

Organize websites according to main topics

As a result of Google’s evolution and our subsequent behavior, websites need to be organized according to main topics. In the current model, we create individual blog posts that rank according to specific keywords. The result is disorganized, difficult for users to find the exact information they need. It also results in our own URLs competing against one another in search-engine rankings because we produce multiple blog posts on similar topics.

A better solution: Creating pillar pages with links to more specific topic clusters

The first step in creating a pillar page is to stop thinking about your site in terms of just keywords. Start thinking about the topics you want to rank for first. Choose a topic that’s broad enough that it can generate more related blog posts that will serve as cluster content, but not so broad that you can’t cover the entire topic on a single pillar page.

Let’s say you write a pillar page about content marketing. It’s a very broad topic, so your cluster topics might be about blogging or social media.

Fundamental to the pillar-page concept is a comprehensive linking strategy among the pillar page and its cluster topics.

A pillar page should answer questions about a particular topic but leave room for more detail in subsequent, related cluster topics.

Pillar pages and SEO: More inbound links = higher placement in search

Pillar pages help position your content so users can easily browse your website and consume your blog posts, videos and infographics. There’s a lot of clutter online, and it can confuse Google’s algorithms. Google loves a clean website experience with a thoughtful linking strategy that tells it exactly what each piece of content is about. Inbound marketing and sales expert HubSpot experienced an increase in their rankings when they used more internal links.

Use personas to help identify the interests and challenges of your audience

If you haven’t created personas, this is a great time to do it. Your personas will help identify the top interests and challenges of your audience, providing topics for pillar-page content.

I’m doing some reorganization of my own website to more closely follow the pillar-page concept, and I’m finding it helpful to create an organizational chart that maps out broad topics that are my pillar pages and the cluster topics that support them.

I’ve begun noticing that even the holdouts have started including emoji in personal texts and emails. And why not? They’re fun, they’re whimsical, they brighten up our messaging. Emoji can help convey emotion and personality; they help tell a story and build relationships. Think of emoji as virtual body language that helps us understand intent.

Emoji have transcended personal communications; they’ve entered the business arena

Business push notifications—newsletters, email blasts–that include emoji in their subject lines are opened a whopping 254% more often than those without the digital smiley faces and icons, according to a Leanplum study provided to Mobile Marketer. The response to notifications that include emoji is three times higher than it was last year. I’m not the only one who is ramping up to emoji!

Email messages with emoji in the subject lines are opened 66% more often than those without. The average number of emoji used per message has doubled in the past year.

While emoji were once derided as unprofessional for business communications, brands are steadily incorporating them into marketing messages to attract consumers’ attention and convey more meaning and emotion than what words alone can provide.

Leanplum’s study of open rates for push notifications and emails demonstrates that emoji help capture mobile users’ attention amid the flurry of text-based communications. A women’s clothing retailer saw an 81% lift in open rates and a 363% surge in revenue from outgoing messages that contained the icons.

Emoji have shown massive influence on internet communication. Last year, according to Facebook, more than 60 million emoji were sent every day on its core social network, while five billion were sent via its Messenger chat platform. As people and brands grow more comfortable using emojis in everyday communications, these numbers will increase.

July 17 is World Emoji Day. The organizers present awards such as Best New Emoji, Most Anticipated Emoji, Excellence in Emoji Use and which emoji best represents 2018 as Emoji of the Year.

The first emoji was created in 1999 in Japan. Since then, the collection has grown to more than 3,000 unique icons.

Yes, there is an emoji newsletter to which you can subscribe. Look for an estimated 157 new emojiscoming to major platforms throughout 2018.

Here’s something I’m betting you didn’t know

In an effort to be politically correct, you can change the skin color of emojis. Really.

Tap the “People” emoji section by tapping the smiley face option at the bottom of the emoji

Hold down the emoji face you want to change and slide your finger to select the skin tone you want.

The selected emoji will stay that skin tone until you change

A few words of caution about emoji usage

Emojis are appropriate for some business emails in the same way that jokes are okay in some job interviews. Know your audience. Avoid emojis if it’s a new acquaintance or if you’re uncertain how someone will respond. Keep in mind that not everyone loves a smiley face.

Marketing experts these days recommend incorporating video into your marketing program for a very good reason. Millennials, the new go-to demographic, love this communication channel. Videos are also an excellent way to increase your Google authority, helping you show up in search engines. Pay-per-Click (PPC) is another hot marketing trend. Google is making a stunning $100M/day from Google Adwords—which means that millions of people around the globe are using PPC to help grow their businesses.

The question inevitably surfaces: Is blogging still necessary?

With the hype around sexier marketing trends like video and PPC, you may be wondering if you still need to be blogging. The answer is a resounding “yes”. Blogging is and will remain an essential strategy for reaching your audience. A few stats from Hubspot:

You have a 434% higher chance of being ranked highly on search engines if you feature a blog.

Businesses using blogs as part of their content-marketing mixget 67% more leads than those who don’t.

More reasons to keep writing and posting high-quality blogs to your website

Blogging is still the most critical content marketing tactic for 2018. In a recent content marketing survey, 52% of respondents agreed that blogging is their most critical content-marketing tactic, followed by email newsletters (40%), social-media content (40%), then ebooks, in-person events, and webinars. Only 30% of respondents considered video to be vital.

Blogging—not video–is the place to provide in-depth information. Long-form content (2,000 words or more) performs systematically well. Forget the trend towards minimalism. To rank well in search engines, a page should be at least 300 words. My rule of thumb: Provide enough information to answer your clients’ questions; frontload information so that the reader is getting the most important information in the first paragraph.

People trust blogs. Think of your blog as your very own platform. This is where you can create your online personality. It’s here where you can differentiate yourself.

Blogging drives web traffic. I love this one: The SEO industry couldn’t survive without words. Your blog is where your words go. One more thing: Your website’s landing pages should also be at least 300 words. More is great, but 300 words is the target.

Blogging spurs inbound links. Companies whoblog receive 97% more links to their website than those who don’t.

Effectiveness. An estimated55% of bloggers report that they get positive results from blogging.

Blogs have evolved. Today’s readers expect transparent storytelling and great, accessible content. Avoid promotion; provide information that helps people do their jobs. Keep it lively, and don’t be afraid to share your opinions.

Your blog works in tandem with social media. Without a blog to promote on social, you’re missing an opportunity to drive high-quality engagement.

Having trouble committing to a blog?

Create an editorial calendar and line up topics a few months in advance. Calendar time each week to write. Don’t be afraid to steal ideas.

Is it possible that anyone these days is unaware of our current online privacy frenzy? Facebook got busted for sharing millions of user data accounts with third-party vendors. The result? Thousands of lawyers are busy whipping up new privacy policies that none of us reads, yet must agree to before we can access a staggering number of websites.

When Mark Zuckerberg spent five hours with Congress, he talked about things like cookies, privacy and his opening up Facebook data files to third-party vendors.

Here are some key takeaways:

1. Facebook’s privacy policy is inadequate

Facebook’s policy was inadequate and confusing. Broad agreements haven’t kept pace with the increase in data fields and the information that makes up user profiles.

Lindsey Graham: “Most Americans have no idea what they are signing up for because Facebook’s terms of service are beyond comprehension.”

3. Say hello to the Facebook monopoly conversation

Facebook is the world’s biggest social-media platform, receiving more than 87% of digital advertising revenue in 2017. The most popular alternative to Facebook? Instagram, also owned by Facebook. Lindsey Graham again: “Contrary to Mr. Zuckerberg’s assertion, Facebook is a virtual monopoly and monopolies need to be regulated.”

4. Solving content woes with artificial intelligence

Finding and eliminating hate speech from the network is one of the hardest problems to tackle, but artificial intelligence can help solve the issue in 5-10 years. Facebook has said before that its staff focused on sensitive security and community issues would grow to 20,000 people by the end of the year.

5. Facebook has no idea how much damage has been done

Lawmakers wanted to know what groups besides political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained user data.Facebook doesn’t know how much data was harvested, bought and sold. Legislators and most users believe that Facebook hasn’t done enough to prevent its tools from being misused.

6. Zuckerberg did better than expected

Zuckerberg’s performance apparently won over investors and a few lawmakers.

Zuckerberg’s performance ostensibly went a long way towards restoring trust of investors and legislators. Shares of Facebook rallied 4.5% after one of the company’stoughest weeks on record.

Facebook has a significant mess to clean up. What can they do to ensure that data remain safe? They can’t guarantee anything. Facebook needs to be accountable, demonstrating to users that they’ve improved and their systems are better.

Facebook has apologized and promised to self-correct; is that enough?

Many users have closed down their accounts. Others are apprehensive, looking for Facebook to step up and be accountable, becoming the model for responsible cyber citizenship. Trust can erode a relationship. Their ability to protect user data will have serious implications for Facebook’s future.

Mark Zuckerberg spent most of last quarter mired in controversy for indiscriminately sharing millions of Facebook users’ account details with third-party vendors. His punishment? Peeling off that ratty tee-shirt, donning his first-ever big-boy suit and tie and testifying before Congress. He was completely MIA for a few weeks as his handlers schooled him in the art of humility. Among his tasks: Explaining to a group of aging politicians that cookieshave no relation to one of America’s favorite desserts. There was clearly a knowledge gap between Zuckerberg and his audience—these legislators had little understanding of the power of data mining or the value of user information.

While Zuckerberg was defending himself to Congress, his team was creating new functionality

At the company’s annual developer’s conference in May, Facebook showcased new visual tools that focus on the platform’s augmented-reality (AR) capacity.

Facebook introduces their new 3D camera

You can now download Facebook’s free 3D camera to your mobile device and take three-dimensional (3D) pictures and upload them to your Facebook News Feed and other apps. The 3D posts provide a whole new layer to images that respond when users scroll past or angle their phones.

Time for a reality check

To try this out, I took a few photos and uploaded them to my own News Feed to see if the camera really worked. I was delighted to see that the new images really do provide an interesting new dimension. The 3D camera has an editing tool so you can filter, enhance, highlight, crop or add text to an image. You can take a new picture or pull up an existing image from your smartphone’s photo library and turn it into one that’s multidimensional. You can upload your new 3D image directly to your Facebook News Feed, Instagram, iCloud Photosharing or WhatsApp applications.

Facebook and VR: enticing us with great new functionality

Facebook is making a significant investment in virtual reality (VR), betting that 3D will be an important component of social communication’s future. While this may be the future, it’s still a long way off. To transition users from their regular social feeds to full VR environments, Facebook will be providing little stepping stones that hint at what the next evolution will be. While the 3D photo may seem like a modest step, the new imaging will make users more interested in how they view images and enhance their own photos. With more than 2 billion smartphone and Facebook users around the world, I’m betting these 3D images will quickly become disseminated across our social channels.

Look for more new tools from Facebook

In the coming months, look for Facebook to introduce visual enhancements that will showcase new ways to engage with Facebook content. Watch Party lets users watch video while chatting with friends.Dating Home enters the online dating space, accessible by clicking on a small heart icon.Facebook is counting on its users to embrace the new functionality that will broaden and enhance our content experiences.

Remember the baby boomers?

They were the big proud, vocal generation who made things happen. A powerful force for creativity, innovation and change. But the boomers are so over. They’re dying and running out of money, their purchasing power significantly diminished.

They’ve been replaced by the millennials, who are now the nation’s largest living generation. Research suggests that millennials have an estimated $200 billion worth of spending power, but reaching this audience requires a different approach than what we used to reach the baby boomer market. Millennials are more digitally connected than any group in history, and they expect a more personal relationship with the businesses they support.

They don’t do anything without validation, asking their friends’ opinions, relying on market research and reading reviews before purchasing.

A big misconception about millennials: They are young and immature

While the demographic still skews young, they are growing up and many now have children. Remember that their tastes and needs will evolve, just as they have for the boomers and other generations. Staying on top of these changes is going to be important.

Another misconception: They avoid traditional media formats like TV and magazines

Magazines are reemerging among millennials as the preferred screen for beauty categories; the group views magazine reading as a luxury or reward.

It’s an oversimplification to suggest that millennials don’t watch TV. They are powerfully drawn to TV for big events, sports, premieres and finales.

Millennials are motivated by a desire to engage in social conversation (FOMO).

Reaching the millennial market: Cause marketing

One way to reach millennials is by aligning your brand with a cause. Millennials love social issues and are likely to select brands and products that support them. Think TOMS Shoes, for instance, which millennials love—buy a pair of the fun, comfy TOMS and they give a free pair of shoes to a needy child.

Most important, if you want to get the attention of millennials, you’ll need a multichannel online presence that is authentic and inspires trust.

“Joan” recently contacted me to talk about her website. She wanted to know if having a mobile-friendly site, one that adapted to mobile devices, was really that important.

Are you kidding?

Google’s 2015 algorithm change, Mobilegeddon, made it clear that they would cater to the growing number of mobile users by enhancing the mobile-search experience. The importance of marketing to desktop users is not necessarily diminishing, but mobile use is increasing. Those sites that aren’t mobile friendly will sink to the bottom of the search results while the mobile-friendly sites swim to the top. Mobile has reached 63% of all traffic in the US; it’s reasonable to expect it to reach a full 2/3 of traffic by the end of 2018. Think of it this way: if your competitors have great mobile sites and you don’t, theirs will show up higher in search results than yours.

Old, dated sites should be laid to rest

Websites have a shelf-life. While you may be able to salvage the content and images, it’s often the case that these are no longer relevant. Joan admitted that her business had evolved, and her five-year old website was no longer reflective of the company she owned today, and we began planning her new site.

Our website development process included:

Keyword research. This helped us determine the search terms people are using in our business sector. In some cases, this research helps drive the navigation.

WordPress. We looked at other platforms but ultimately decided on WordPress. We chose a template design with an eye towards clear, accessible navigation.

Generating new content. We identified the site’s architecture, adding a few new landing pages. I drafted all of the site’s content for her review. While there’s a trend toward providing short paragraph, the reality is that longer pages rank better in search engines–300 words is a good target.

Image upgrade. Joan’s old site had little thumbnail images that would not work in our new design, so I selected potential photostock images for each page and saved them to a board her review. We scheduled a photoshoot to get new images of her and her team.

A few other things to keep in mind

Size matters.Text should be big enough to read; buttons large enough to be able to click. If your mobile visitors have to manipulate their screens, zooming in or out, you’ve probably just lost a potential customer.

Image size also matters. If your images are too big, your site won’t load. If they’re too small, they’re a distraction rather than an enhancement to the user experience.

Website conversion. In some cases, we’ve can convert old sites into WordPress’ mobile-friendly format, but generally it means starting over from scratch. New content, images and design.

A final thought: If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you can bet your biggest competitors’ sites are. For many small businesses, a website is their primary marketing spend; it’s an important investment that deserves careful planning and effort to keep it relevant.

I suggested to one of my clients that we create infographics for several fairly complex processes described on our website. “Great idea!” I started working in Apple’s Pages, then remembered someone’s telling me about Piktochart, an online tool for creating infographics, posters and presentations. I created an account, logged in and began designing.

What a nice surprise–this tool is ridiculously easy to use!

You can use the free version or upgrade to the paid version. I used the poor man’s version and found that there’s plenty of functionality.

You can choose from about eight infographic templates. Unlike some program templates, these are completely customizable—you can delete features, change colors and fonts and reconfigure.

None of the templates really worked for me. I’ve had quite a bit of graphics experience, so I created my infographicsfrom scratch. Take some time to Google for infographic designs that fit your needs.

There is a full complement of fonts. It’s easy to change font size, color and both line and letter spacing.

Something I really love: Text blocks autosize. When you add or delete text, the block automatically changes to fit the new space—no manual adjusting.

The site comes with a fairly robust library of images/icons and photos, though the number of business photo images is limited.

The drag and drop feature is a breeze. If you have an image on your desktop, just drag it into your infographic and it autoloads in the application’s Uploads section—a single, seamless step.

The line tool is a limitation.The free version provides only a dotted line that is a bit hard to manipulate, but it’s a small complaint.

I’m delighted with my infographics and plan to add these to my own website and suggest them to other clients. It’s not surprising that infographics, the visual representation of data, have surged as such an important medium. Good marketing tells a story, and infographics help make our messages clear and accessible.

Infographics work because 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual

According to a report by a New York visual communications company, Infographic World, visuals are known to improve learning and retention by a whopping 400%. This is due to our frighteningly short attention spans and the fact that we absorb information faster by reading and seeing concepts with corresponding graphics. Images also trigger an emotional connection.

A few more reasons to love infographics

Infographics help break down large chunks of data into coherent, manageable content bites and simplify complex processes.

They answer specific business questions and facilitate decision-making.

The chance of an infographic’s going viral is much higher than that of plain text content.

SEO value. The viral nature of an infographic means that Google will index your website higher due to Google’s page-rank algorithm, increasing the importance that search engines place on your site.

One of my clients had been doing a good job of managing his own marketing program, but as his business grew, he found that he didn’t have time to develop and execute a strategic plan. The result? He ended up spending money on last-minute Hail-Mary efforts that weren’t reaching his audience. Those great one-time special deals that ad salespeople talk you into aren’t special at all; they’re a waste of money. We developed a strategy that includes Facebook ads.

Marketing had become fragmented and perfunctory

For this client, a CPA, a monthly newsletter was becoming a quarterly, his weekly blog was now a monthly and his social media posts were sporadic and uninspired, often missing images. He understood the power of marketing and enjoyed the creativity; he simply didn’t have time to do this well.

We reviewed his Google Analytics reports to evaluate his website traffic

We wanted to know the demographics of his visitors and from what domains they were coming, how long they stayed on his site and their drilldown patterns.

When I asked him about his target audience, his answer was too general, so our marketing plan included an exercise in creating personas. We wanted to develop detailed profiles of those clients with whom he really wanted to be working—not necessarily those with whom he was now working. We wanted to identify their likes and dislikes, ages, professions, lifestyle preferences, etc.

We agreed that Facebook advertising should be part of our marketing program

We included Facebook pay-per-click (PPC) in our marketing plan. We would start with keyword research to identify those words we should be using in all of our online communications. We also wanted to identify negative keywords—those words we should be avoiding.

Facebook advertising: ability to drill down to specific demographic information

Facebook may be unique for the detailed personal information it collects. Facebook’s fields make up a fairly comprehensive database. Every time we fill in a field with information about our lives and our preferences, we’re contributing to a rich data pool.

We needed to create a goal—was it a phone call, email, a signup for his newsletter or a Like? The call to action needed to be clear and accessible.

We decided to create landing page on our website. It will be branded and synchronize with the ad messaging.

As with all online media, the headline is critical–you have just seconds and 30 characters to catch someone’s attention. Be a little edgy. Be bold. Be funny. Take a chance.

Use high-res images that are relevant and attention-getting. Spend time finding really good images.

Select a bidding option. Clicks, impressions, Likes.

The great thing about PPC advertising? You control costs

You pay only when someone clicks on your ad, and your daily budget identifies how much you will spend on a campaign. Once you hit your daily limit, your ads stop showing. Cost effectiveness, along with the ability to personalize your ads by detailed demographic fields, makes Facebook advertising a very effective way to promote your business.

Navigation

Social Media Belongs in B2B Marketing Strategies

Forget “not my audience”. Time to make it your audience. The new marketing paradigm means that people are looking for emotional connections.

Good Marketing Is About the Stories We Tell

Telling a story is the essence of content marketing. Think case studies that position you as a problem-solver.

Taking the Mystery Out of Keywords

Think about the words and phrases that people would be keying into a search engine to find you. Times have changed—they don’t have to be a perfect match.

Who We Are

We're writers and internet marketing experts. What sets us apart? A strong background in traditional marketing and advertising, but we've been working in the online space for more than 15 years. We're helping our clients show up in search engines, building online brands.